Marshall's history of blurring the line. Data centers in governor’s race.

By Clay Wirestone | opinion editor

As Sen. Roger Marshall fights for his political life in Kansas, a staffer for Democrat Adam Hamilton — Marshall’s opponent — has been needling the Republican senator’s staff with an unusual question: Are any of you getting paid?

According to Marshall’s most recent Federal Election Commission records filed in July, no one working for Marshall’s campaign had received a paycheck in the past five years — a situation that campaign finance experts said was potentially unprecedented in the modern era of politics.

But according to Marshall’s chief of staff, Brent Robertson, the campaign now does have some paid staff, though he declined to offer evidence or details, such as how many people were being paid or when their employment began.

Still, campaign experts say the situation raises questions about the line between Marshall’s campaign and his taxpayer-funded Senate office.

In a joint investigation, Kansas Reflector and MS NOW obtained audio recordings, photos, videos, screenshots of text messages and calendar items from 2020 — when Marshall first ran for his Senate seat — that appear to show the senator and his top aide repeatedly using congressional staff and government resources in ways that experts say likely crossed the line between official business and campaigning.

According to the Members’ Congressional Handbook, if the “primary purpose” of a trip is for a non-official event or purpose, “the office cannot schedule official activities around the non-official event/purpose to make the travel eligible for congressional offices to be reimbursed.”

But the materials obtained by Kansas Reflector and MS NOW show the office repeatedly testing that principle during Marshall’s 2020 campaign — and multiple former staffers recounted instances when the office seemed to function more as a campaign arm than a taxpayer-funded Senate office.

TOPEKA — Cindy Holscher and Ty Masterson sat about 20 feet apart on the floor of the Kansas Senate on the final day of the 2025 legislative session as they voted for the bill granting a 20-year state and local sales tax exemption to developers of massive data centers.

By Michele Patterson Ford

If a person’s story changes in the weeks following an alleged sexual assault, are they not telling the truth?

It’s a criticism I’ve seen on social media and heard in the public conversation surrounding the lawsuit filed in September 2026 by a plaintiff known as Jane Doe, a former student at Cornell University, accusing seven male students of rape.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said late Wednesday that it expects to complete its long-awaited safety review of abortion pills by mid-December and issue a report evaluating the results by March 2027.

President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to leave open the possibility that the federal government won’t livestream a military execution planned for December that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said would be public.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly joined Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand in Des Moines on Thursday, saying her tenure shows it is possible to be an effective Democratic governor while working with a GOP-controlled state Legislature.

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